ABC News reports that nearly half of the judges in the immigration court system will be eligible for retirement next year:

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the nation's 59 immigration courts, says the court already has 32 vacancies, contributing to the current backlog of nearly 350,000 cases. Judges are overwhelmed, and immigrants with legitimate asylum claims can spend years in legal limbo.

Retirement could add to the case backlog, and may not be unexpected given the large caseload and that the judges have "no bailiff, no court reporter and aren't guaranteed a court clerk" and that a Georgetown Immigration Law Journal article found immigration judges "exhibited more burnout 'than prison wardens and physicians in busy hospitals.'"